'97 ROUNDUP REVEALS BANNER YEAR, IN SPIRIT

By CHARLES W. BELL

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS|

Dec 27, 1997 | 12:00 AM

IN A WAY, ALL stories are about religion because all stories are about human nature, ethics, morality and their consequences, but that's a kind of cop-out def inition. So here is a more traditional list of what was what on the 1997 religion beat. The biggest story, in every way, was the death of Mother Teresa. Her death, in Calcutta at age 87, was overshadowed by the death of Princess Diana, who, ironically, was popularly canonized as a secular saint. Teresa, the greatest living symbol of service to the poorest, was hailed as a saint, too, and sooner or later the Vatican undoubtedly will agree. The suicide of 39 members of a techno-religious movement called Heaven's Gate, at a secluded mansion near San Diego, jarred the world and inspired a brief flurry of interest in so-called cybercults. In the case of Heaven's Gate, the 39 died hoping to shed their "earthly containers" and meet a passing comet. The cloning of a sheep named Dolly, in Scotland, sparked intense debate on the moral and theological implications of creating and altering life in the laboratory. Oregon voters soundly defeated a move to outlaw a physician-assisted suicide law that they approved in 1994, dealing religious leaders a sharp rebuff. One of the noisiest uproars involved the Rev. Henry Lyons, a Florida pastor and head of the largely black National Baptist Convention. He was accused of financial and personal improprieties that included owning a home with a convicted embezzler. Lyons survived a move to oust him. The Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant church in the country, made headlines and created considerable controversy by voting to boycott the Disney Co. because of its alleged "anti-family" policies. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and America's large, vibrant and mostly liberal Jewish community clashed over proposed laws to give Orthodox rabbis more power at the expense of other branches of Judaism. There were some advances in the plodding process toward Christian unity, but the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America nixed the most important move to join Episcopalians in "full Communion.

" The role of bishops was the main sticking point. The most important religious visitor was Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople (Istanbul), spiritual leader of 300 million Orthodox Christians. He spent a month on a national pilgrimage, and during his New York stay received a rare tribute the city named a block in midtown Manhattan for him. Catholic bishops took the first careful steps toward restoring the long-abandoned practice of meatless Fridays as a sign of penance for abortion and other departures from church moral law. More significant was their letter to parents of children who are homosexual, asking them to accept and love their gay daughters and sons while upholding church teaching. The largest court verdict found the diocese of Dallas and a former priest liable in a case of sexual abuse of one-time altar boys and awarded the plaintiffs $120 million. The diocese appealed. Another lawsuit involved television evangelist Robert Schuller, who was sued for $5 million by a United Airlines flight attendant who said he was roughed up by Schuller during a dispute over grapes during a flight to New York. The Episcopal Church elected a successor to Edmond Browning as national presiding bishop. The new man is Frank Griswold 3rd of Chicago, who assumes his duties in New York at the start of the new year. Pope John Paul made headlines with more trips, including one to Lebanon, and persuaded Fidel Castro to reinstate Christmas as a Cuban national holiday after 30 cheerless years. The Pope visits Cuba next month, his 81st trip outside Italy since his election in 1978. Odds and ends: The Templeton Prize, the richest cash award in the world, and worth $1.

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2 million this year, went to Pandurang Shastri Athavale, founder of an Indian spiritual self-knowledge movement. The Rev. Floyd Flake, a Democratic congressman and long-time pastor of Allen AME Church in St. Albans, Queens, announced he was giving up his seat to devote himself full-time to the ministry. DEATHS INCLUDED Chaim Herzog, president of Israel from 1983 to 1993; the Rev. Sam Proctor, nationally known theologian and one-time pastor of Abyssinian Baptist Church; Betty Shabazz, widow of Malcolm X, and retired Bishop Patrick O'Keefe, long-time auxiliary in New York. And finally, peace to all. And joy.